Southern Moderate African American Issues

Means Testing: Diddy’s son and A.S.U.’s sons

This nonsense about Diddy’s son getting an athletic scholarship puts my years at Albany State College in mind. For those who don’t know, Justin Combs was offered at $54K scholarship to play cornerback at U.C.L.A. and people are losing their minds because Diddy is worth half a billion dollars.

First of all, I say congrats to Justin because U.C.L.A. was my dream school as a kid. While my classmates wanted to play for Coach Dooly at U.G.A., I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. If Justin didn’t the book work and can cover speedy receivers from U.S.C. and Cal, he has the awarded opportunity coming to him.

In the 1980s, Albany State had a president with a son and a vice president with sons who torn high school up academically. Those cats could have attended any school in nation but they chose to take presidential scholarships at Albany. The president’s son had an ice-cold BMW but hey, the guy had it coming for rocking the books. I will never forget that life lesson created by the president: he gave his son a bimmer but the kid had to pay for the insurance with earned money. On visits to the local mall, you would see the son working so well at the chicken place that he made manager (I think) before he was 20 years old. If that guy stayed with that food chain, he would likely be steps away from being CEO today but he went to medical school and now wears a long white coat. Don’t hate, congratulate. The vice president was a referee for ACC football; he was serious about achievement and I enjoyed the few encounters we had.

In government, this discussion would be considered means testing. A means test is a determination of whether an individual or family is eligible for government money. Some politicians and policy wonks have proposed means testing Social Security for wealth Americans. While I will likely never be rich, I wanted the government to clearly understand one thing: you can pay me my money or (as we said in Blaylock Hall at dear old A.S.C.) I can take it out of your ________ . (rhymes with crass)

While I love President Obama, Democrats should be fair regarding the wealthy. If a guy made his money from hard work and dedication, the state shouldn’t take too much of that money to help some chump who didn’t study in school or failed at business. That might sound cold but that is real.